


A Chronicle of Early Failures

by basically_thearlaich



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: And naked, Dark, Dark Fox, Dark-ish, Edee, F/M, Fox Lives, Fox digs it, Fox is angry, Padmé is naked too though, Post Order 66, Rarepair, Scars, and angry, and is his usual bastard self, even if she has a blaster, hot for the Senator, pointed at his 'bits', sham-senate, so the situation is maybe a bit improved, the Senate is Palpatine's plaything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:54:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26773969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/basically_thearlaich/pseuds/basically_thearlaich
Summary: “Go on,” he taunts, steps closer and bats the blaster away from her loose grip like one would with a mosquito. He doesn’t miss the hitch in her breath. “Try to order me, eedee. I'm curious to see if I got it right.”“Execute Order 66,” she breathes, sweet breath on his face and he smirks darkly into her white face when not even the smallest part of him rears to obey.
Relationships: Padmé Amidala & CC-1010 Fox, Padmé Amidala/CC-1010 | Fox
Comments: 2
Kudos: 43





	A Chronicle of Early Failures

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Tales from the Cup and Bowl](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26154754) by [basically_thearlaich](https://archiveofourown.org/users/basically_thearlaich/pseuds/basically_thearlaich). 



> I don't even know. This sprouted from Tales from the Cup and Bowl when the first pairing I picked for 'Oenomel' (Ch. 10) was Padmé and Fox and... it turned a bit darker than just that. So I refined it a bit and... voilà I suppose.

+++

He knows her from before. From the time when his biggest worry had been signing all the right documents in time to ship them to the chancellor's office ready to file away.

That's Emperor now he supposes.

Emperor Palpatine.

What a joke.

Fox breathes through the stab of phantom pain in his chest where lightning had struck and closes his eyes to move through the memory.

“Are you with me, Commander?”

He shakes his head. “Not a Commander, Ma'am.”

Not even a clever man considering his position.

And what a position it is. Naked and prone on the softest karking mattress he’s had under him since… well, probably forever. Lips still tacky from her lipstick and his dick not even doing him the favour of _wilting_. Despite his shackled hands and the Lady above him – the one who’d just been in his arms and _so close_ to--

“Your designation--”

“My designation is a lie,” he can't believe the shackles she has him in now that he has a better look. Aren't those-- “I was manufactured to be different and was given a military title for it. We both know that's not how it works.”

She startles. Beautiful big eyes, nudity covered up in only the slightest of see-through shifts now that she's lured him in. He should've known better than to fall for a honey-trap of all things. But Stars forgive a man for wanting just one night with another warm body next to his.

It’s been lonely down here. Lonely enough for him not to question the female who would sidle up to him every odd night and share a portion of the way home. He knows these streets, knows they’re not friendly, knows he has a reputation and the physical build to match it. He hadn’t questioned it when they’d grown closer. Incrementally so. Stars she must have waited _months_ for this one opportunity.

He should have been more wary when she’d turned up wounded.

When she’d offered--

When she’d _offered_.

And yet here she is all doe-like and sweet turning to him as if surprised at his outburst. And it would still be all too easy to trust that face.

Even when he knows there’s something else lurking under the mask of her evenly toned skin and neat maquillage. And he shouldn't be surprised by that either, he figures - it takes _something_ _else_ to escape the things that had sought to trap her.

 _Eedee_ , he thinks with an aching fondness and a growing frustration that this woman has never been his to claim. Not then and not now. Married to a disaster first and to a cause now. There’s no place for something like him in a life like hers.

...At least not if he won’t carve it out for himself.

[And here’s an uncomfortable truth he is aware of but chooses to ignore: The Clones were bred for the Republic; were made to be loyal to a conglomerate of Senators that were meant to be the best option for the planets and the people they represented. _The Empire_ should not be an option for their programming – not with its extinction protocols and the ruthless hunt of those who are still very much an opposing part of a Senate, no matter how much of a sham it is. But if there has ever been a Senator he’d looked out for – looked up to – he knows it would have been her.]

“Then how does it work?” she asks. Tears him out of his focus to get out of the shackles that tie his hands to the bed up and over his head. She doesn't address him by any name or title and he knows that it's not a rhetoric negligence. She wants something from him. He's not sure what yet though. Only that he needs to buy himself time.

“You serve and you get noticed,” he bites back raising his head to glare into her general direction. Then snorts and throws his head back into the soft, scented bedding: “Or you're born into the right family and your dad greases the right palms.”

He's promoted enough Blues to know that the latter happens so much more often… Had. Had happened more often than not.

Stars, what a headache.

“You have served the Republic for four years,” she intones, eyes flinty. “Excluding your training.”

He doesn’t know where she wants to go with that, but he figures it’s time to sit her out. Wait for what she has to say. With any luck, they’re reaching the part of the play where she divulges her need of him – her agenda.

Then again, Senators are slippery. They think in multiple layers and never fight on merely one front. And she's one of the best at the game if she's still alive - and kicking, from the looks of it.

Over his head, the strain of the shackles gives.

“Is it true that the Red Shelters were your idea and relied entirely on you for their success?”

 _No_ , he wants to snarl. Wants to sit up and rip the karking lamp out of its position so he can smash it into the next best wall. The _Red Shelters_ were a _lie_. But all he can do is sit up, quietly and with a face he knows is darker than the Template’s could possibly ever have been when he does glare at her in her little karking purple night-shift. He doesn’t know why she’s put it on - ‘s not like he _hasn’t_ already told her what a beautiful thing she was, sitting in front of her on the bed, looking up at a mask of a Shadow Hologram. But the body hasn’t been a lie apparently.

“ _My men_ , worked that concept out with me,” he snaps. “We had _no funds_ and _they_ found them. We had _no space_ for it and _they_ found that. Just like that--” he snips his fingers. “The karking Red Shelters were a success because _someone_ _wanted them to be_. Because it was _good_ to have the Corrie fekking idiots focused on _something else_ than whatever the had asshole in charge was doing.”

She takes another breath and--

[--he wants to rip the laughable thing of a shift from her and make her karking honour her fekking words but--]

“Before you rattle off any _more_ nonsense, this is true for all our projects,” he interjects with a growl. “Our armour was red because that's the colour of herring he fekking served us. So don't you dare stand there and tell me I'm deserving of a title that this bastard deigned to give me after he had already made me his puppet.”

A silence and then… “You know about the chips.”

The unfortunate thing is that he _likes_ her. As a person. Has liked her before _haran_ encroached on reality and has to like her now when she shouldn't be here but won't hesitate to rebel. When she won’t hesitate to step off her high horse and slum it with the most degenerate of deviants available on Coruscant for _months_ to get a chance at luring him into a trap she has to know will only catch him once. And a honey-trap at that. _It’s insulting_ (both liking her and falling for such an obvious trick).

He makes an annoyed clicking sound in the corner of his mouth as he sits forward, shackles slipping from his wrists. Isn't surprised by the small thing of a blaster she pulls out of seemingly nowhere. [If she weren't beholden to that Sith-spitting Bantha-herder of a--]

“I've seen enough brothers swallow their decee in the last few months for no apparent reason and I did some digging. Guess where that got me--” he taunts. Stretches just enough to let her see the silvery scars in the low light. On his chest, his sides, his shoulders. The pocked burn-marks on his arms. He ain’t ever been a pretty sight but it sure as hell hasn’t gotten any better recently.

“In the last three months of my _service_ I’ve had nothing to do except watch mould grow in the hold they had me in and connect the karking dots,” a lie – he’s done a lot of thinking and planning, a lot of note-taking and a lot of mental filing away. But she doesn’t have to know that. Doesn’t have to know that once he’s gone from here, once he’s survived her, he’s going to vanish behind the curtain like an actor after the play.

She is suspiciously quiet and Fox allows himself to roam her figure, catches her eyes on him and can’t help but stare right back at her.

“I killed a brother once who knew well before any of us did,” he says then. “And I shouldn't have.”

She sighs in something that approaches commiseration: “It is the right time for regrets.” But he catches her eyes with his own. Glares and bares his teeth when he stands, naked and unbothered. Let her see what it means to be a prisoner of the Empire.

“No, _y_ _ou_ don't get it. I shouldn't have killed him. It should never have been in my repertoire. Do you understand? I've been Corrie Commander for four years by then without shooting a single kill shot even at threats that were bigger than a _vod_ with good sense. I should not even have had a blaster capable of killing.”

Comprehension dawns in her eyes. “Because you were in the senatorial domes too…”

“But we weren't with the Blues. _They_ got the hot weaponry. _We_ got the stunners. This is what I mean when I say I should not have killed him. It should have been impossible. And it should also have been impossible for me to get away with it. A murder on Coruscant and no report? And then everyone forgot about it too? _Yes_ I looked. And I found…”

He stops. Looks at her. And laughs. Harsh and abruptly. “This is what you want,” he breathes with a sense of malicious glee at the hardening of her eyes. “The little fox found something in the snake-den and the badger wants it just as badly as that venomous twat.”

He should never have pulled the string. It’s bad if it’s obvious enough that it has been _him_ to do so – and there _has_ to be a trace for her to find him for the intel. Which means he's going to die for it but-- If he hadn't done it then his brothers truly would be forever lost.

This, at least, meant that someone else would know. Would have to carry the burden.

Fox swallows his heart back down and assumes a calmer voice than his pulse would warrant.

“If you let them live I can give you more than just the list of orders,” he bargains. Looks her in the eyes and tries to forget that he could leave _right now_ and still act on that grand karking plan of his. _Without her help_. Then again she has the better resources for this and… She’s a sweet thing, sure, but also always had a spine of steel to her.

Like now when she rolls her eyes and cocks her blaster poignantly at his vulnerables, “You are in no position to bargain,” she remarks drily and Fox bares his teeth in something that isn't quite a threat. He _likes_ her. “I know enough to know that I could order you to--”

He barks a harsh laugh and bends forward as he brushes his rusty hair back. Shows off the scar that he knows is more gruesome than it would need to be - but he's no medic and it's possible he wasn't quite in his right mind when he held the slicer at blaster-point to get it out of him – _no anaesthesia_.

“Go on,” he taunts, steps closer and bats the blaster away from her loose grip like one would with a mosquito. He doesn’t miss the hitch in her breath. “Try to order me, _eedee_. I'm curious to see if I got it right.”

“Execute Order 66,” she breathes, sweet breath on his face and he smirks darkly into her white face when not even the smallest part of him rears to obey. Her hands are on his chest, silken and cool and his smile is likely not a nice thing to look at but she doesn’t fight him off either when he steps even _close_ _r_ and lets her feel him.

“Get karked, Madame Senator.”

He claims her lips in a bruising kiss that she only fights hard enough to gain control over.

  
  
  



End file.
